The 2015-2016 Language Arts Curriculum focuses on components of Readers and Writers Workshop.

Units of Study for Reading and Writing

Reading Unit I Joey Pigza Loses Control               Writing Unit I Narrative

Reading Unit II The Watsons Go to Birmingham   Writing Unit II Persuasive

Reading Unit III Among the Hidden                    Writing Unit III Literary Essay

Reading Unit IV Out of the Dust                      Writing Unit IV Poetry

Readers Workshop

The Reader's Workshop approach to learning offers students the tools for book selection and reading comprehension.  Reader's Workshop encourages even the most reluctant readers by giving him/her the skills needed to be successful readers. 

The program emphasizes the interaction between readers and text . Students learn to ask questions, make connections (personal, global, text), make predictions, make inferences, and clarify for deeper understanding.

In addition, peer conferences are held to strengthen student interaction and collaboration, as well as teacher conferences to recognize strengths, provide guidance, and offer support.

Over the course of the year, students will enhance reading comprehension skills that will enable him/her to navigate any given genre, heighten critical thinking skills, and elaborately respond to text.  

Writer's Workshop

The Writer's Workshop approach evolves from the notion that if aspiring professional writers use the workshop approach, then it should be most suitable for the classroom. Students are working authors and the teacher is a writing professional, peer coach, and guide as he/she explores.

Students spend much of class time learning by doing; putting pencil to paper.  This approach to writing allows students to choose his/her topic, develop his/her writing pieces as they work through a variety of writing projects. The teacher will write with students to share and model  his/her work and support the writing process.

In a Writer's Workshop classroom, lessons are concise and focused on real-world issues. Students are encouraged to peer share and peer conference to gain new perspectives and gain suggestions through peer editing.

Over the course of year, students will collect a wide variety of work that will be showcased in a writing portfolio.